This invention relates to integrating and translating software application user interfaces from a targeted computer system to a new computer system without modifying the underlying application.
Software developers, system integrators, value added resellers and end users are eager to utilize the leading edge handheld computers and portable data collection terminals. Yet, incorporating these new devices into existing software systems has proven difficult primarily because the computer system running the application must provide a user interface with a minimum functionality. For instance, an inventory system's user interface may require a screen capable of displaying 24 lines by 80 characters. Yet, a portable terminal may only provide 4 lines by 40 characters, and therefore be incapable of directly running the application. Since handheld or portable terminals typically do not provide the required minimum functionality, they are not capable of running most current applications.
The traditional solutions to this problem included rewriting the old application, buying a new application suited to the portable terminal restrictions, or writing a custom mapping program that would "map" the fields, prompts and responses from their respective positions on the targeted computer display to the more usable positions on the portable device. Rewriting the old application takes time, costs money and risks the introduction of bugs into the existing system. Buying a new application involves significant expense and risk.
Custom mapping programs are expensive and time consuming to create and increase the maintenance cost of the application as changes in the application program could require further changes in the custom mapping program. In addition, custom mapping programs can create synchronization problems. The need to synchronize becomes obvious when you think about the impact of an error message not being seen by an operator who continues to type ahead. Therefore, custom mapping programs are not a satisfactory solution to the problem.
The present invention solves this problem by acting as an intelligent trainable interface between an existing application and a new computer system. The result is that the present invention allows the use of existing computer software with hardware for which it was not originally designed. Specifically, it provides a means of interfacing with the existing program, processing the data from the display screens of that existing program and presenting these data to the user in a different manner and/or format. Similarly, it accepts data from the user, reformats the data if necessary, and presents the re-formatted data to the existing application.
One goal of the present invention is to provide a system that can translate or convert an existing software application's user interface, so as to operate on a new computer system. In addition, it is a goal of the present invention to provide a system that utilizes a simple scheme to educate or train the system to translate an existing software application's user interface. A further goal of the invention is to provide synchronization mechanisms to sync operation of a portable device to that of an existing software application. An additional goal of the invention is to provide robust error handling of application errors.